"What am I living for and what am I dying for at the same time?"

'The Year of the Flood' is a continuation of, rather than a sequel or prequal of 'Oryx and Crake', Atwood herself described it as a 'simultanial'. Several characters from the earlier book appear, along with institutions such as 'God's Gardeners' and the security arm of the 'Corporations', 'CorpSeCorps'.

The Gardeners, are an eco-religious sect of organic farmers who farm rooftops, which can be defended from the marauding gangs who infest the streets outside their compounds. The Gardeners try to live in harmony with nature rather than rely on manufactured commodities. In contrast the Corporations control pretty well every facet of everyday life. As in the earlier book, all science and technology is Corporation-owned, and is employed in the service of furthering capitalist growth, destroying the resources and ecological balances of the planet in the process.

There is no given setting for this book but is probably either the American mid-west or Canada. The book opens in Year 25 when most of humanity have died and the few survivors are struggling for existence. Much of the novel takes place in flashbacks to as early as the Year Five, when things were bad, but not that bad yet.

Each section of this book opens with a sermon from Adam One and a hymn but the story is largely told from the viewpoint of two women, Toby and Ren. The two women are very different in both age and physique yet they also compliment each other with their very different experiences and life stories. The demise of mankind is consequently seen through the eyes of these two powerless women, whose individual characters, temperaments, loyalties and emotions are vivid and memorable. In contrast none of the male characters are developed at all; they play their roles nothing more.

The future that Atwood paints here is pretty bleak but believable. This book manages to fill in a few gaps and solving the cliff-hanger at the end of 'Oryx and Crake' but whilst I did enjoy reading it it wasn't as much as I enjoyed the original. I also feel that whilst 'O & C' would work well as a stand alone novel this book wouldn't. ( )

I enjoyed The Year of the Flood even better than Oryx and Crake. The story was exciting, and Atwood clearly had fun delving into the world of God's Gardeners, a loopy but likable band of eco-Christians whose theology seems to have been lifted from a Dr. Bronner's soap label (though with better lyrics).

(The God's Gardeners surprise us, too—they begin as loving satire, but their earnest sermons and hymns become increasingly pointed and moving. This novel is one very good answer to the question of how to write fiction in the age of climate change.)

Atwood did a clever job nesting the plot of this book around Oryx & Crake. I loved the idea that while Jimmy is spiraling into his existential haze, quite different stories are happening. Yet I wasn't crazy about Ren's character development being dependent on the scaffolding of the previous novel—her obsession with Jimmy felt a little too neat, a literary flourish rather than an integral part of the story. ( )

This was really a 2 1/2 stars. It might even be a three but honestly I was so disappointed in the book it left me bewildered. It was just no where near as good as the first one. It was also filled with a lot of old themes. I have read a lot of science fictions books that covered this subject and felt way more unique. I am guessing this book will be fine for others but reading it so soon after the first one it felt hollow. ( )

Interesting, thought-provoking and disturbing. Not nearly as good as Oryx and Crake, and definitely should be read after the same. This dystopian world book is a powerful, skillfully written commentary on our current experiences. ( )

It's hard to fairly review The Year of the Flood -- [b:Oryx and Crake|46756|Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)|Margaret Atwood|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327896599s/46756.jpg|3143431] is a masterpiece, which will be celebrated as a timeless classic in the genre. The Year of the Flood is...not. It's not bad, but it's a far cry from Oryx and Crake.
The beginning of the book, for me, was the best -- I liked how Atwood fleshed out the religion of God's Gardeners, and especially liked that she primarily narrated from the point of view of Toby, who herself was cynical towards the religion. I thought it leant interesting insight into the idea of deeds-based religion versus faith-based religion, using a fictional religion to showcase the concepts. The religion itself was interesting: an attempt to merge high-level evolution and science, environmentalism and Judeo-Christian thought. I thought overall Atwood balanced the components well, and made the religion both compelling and flawed, which I appreciated.

I like the main characters as well, Atwood is at her best creating nuanced female characters, and Toby is one of my favorite protagonists. Atwood relaly allows her characters to grow and evolve over the course of the novel, in a way that is very unusual and very enjoyable to read.

The second half of the book, where it starts to overlap with the events in Oryx and Crake is rockier on several dimensions. First and most problematic is that Atwood makes the choice to recount overlapping events, but to do so summarily and tersely. This disrupts the flow of the novel and makes it read, in places, almost like Cliff Notes for its predecessor. The second problem is that there are multiple coincidences that end up tying together the protagonists from Year of the Flood with Oryx, Crake and Jimmy. These are far too frequent to be credible. I'm not sure if Atwood is making a narrative point by mashing the characters together in multiple ways, or if it's lazy writing. It's rare for me to find Atwood lazy, so I suspect the former, but if she's making a point, I didn't get it.

Finally, I think there's an uncomfortable line here between futuristic dystopia that plays on modern themes and conspiracy-mongering. I found Oryx and Crake to be firmly in the former camp, commenting on modern issues such as corporation rights and the growing class divide through the lens of dystopian fiction, while the Year of the Flood seems to be uncomfortable close to the latter, suggesting that no one should take pharmaceuticals because of Big Pharma or trust the government in any way. And while I agree with the first set of themes, the extension in Year of the Flood is one that happens by many people in real life today and I think it's counterproductive, so reading this thinly fictionalized account was uncomfortable.

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